


Tales from the Eye of the Storm

by bedlamsbard



Series: Ouroboros [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Missing Scene, Multi, background time travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-26
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-02-18 19:58:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2360390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bedlamsbard/pseuds/bedlamsbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miscellaneous scenes and short fic set in the Clone Wars timeline during the missing two months of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760">Wake the Storm</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rex: Semper Fidelis

**Author's Note:**

> All of these scenes take place between the Battle of Odryn and Anakin's reappearance in Chapter 9 of Wake the Storm. Some of these were originally posted on Tumblr or DW; I'll try and note which ones are reposts. Those that are have had some minor rewrites to make sure that they're in line with each other, Wake, and Queen's Gambit. I'm pulling them together into one place just so they're more conveniently found than on my [cut scenes and concept writing tag](http://bedlamsbard.tumblr.com/tagged/cut-scenes-and-concept-writing), which isn't just Ouroboros 'verse fic.

After Odryn, the extent of their losses hadn’t hit Rex until the 501st and the 212th were back in their barracks on Coruscant. On _Resolute_ he really hadn’t had time to think about it in the chaos of the aftermath; they had had to exfil so quickly that no one was with their company or squadron, troopers from the 501st mixed in with those from the 212th; he and the officers on the other transports had still been busy working out who was where and making sure that the troopers on their ships were taken care of. Rex had known that they had taken heavy casualties, but he hadn’t realized how heavy until he was standing in the enlisted barracks on Coruscant, staring around at all the empty beds. Intellectually he knew that it couldn’t be quite as bad as it looked, since most of the wounded had already gone to the infirmary, but still –

He didn’t find out how bad it really was until three days later, when the final reports came in.

Rex was in the officers’ club, along with Fives, Cody from the 212th, and half a dozen junior clone officers down at the other end of the bar. His datapad chirped to signal an incoming message and Rex tapped it to open the file, glancing over it until he realized what he was reading.

“They’re disbanding the Five-Oh-First.”

The words sounded hollow to his ears, unreal. Fives and Cody swung around to stare at him, and Rex read the first few lines of the missive again, trying to force them into an order that made sense.

“ _Due to losses sustained in combat_ ,” he read out loud, the words catching in his throat, “ _the 501st Battalion of the Grand Army of the Republic, formerly under the command of Jedi General Anakin Skywalker (MIA), has been disbanded and the remaining troopers will be reassigned as needed._ ”

His hands were shaking as he put the datapad down on the table. They were going to be split up. His brothers were going to be sent away, scattered through the GAR to fill empty holes in other battalions under Jedi generals Rex didn’t know.

Cody was saying something to him, Fives snaking the datapad out from under his hand to look at the message for himself, but Rex wasn’t aware of any of it. The 501st was gone, as gone as General Skywalker, and Rex hadn’t even been paying attention when it had been killed.

He gathered everyone left in the 501st that evening, even the wounded except for those still in bacta tanks. It was a pitifully small number, Rex realized, looking over them as they sat in the big auditorium usually used for GSO shows. All of them were looking patiently up at him, probably waiting to hear which Jedi general they were going to get as their new commanding officer. Only Fives knew what was coming.

Rex didn’t sugarcoat it. “As of 0800 this morning, the Five Hundred and First Battalion no longer exists. Due to the loss of General Skywalker and the heavy casualties we’ve sustained, GAR High Command has decided that this battalion is no longer combat efficient. We’ll be split up and reassigned elsewhere in the GAR.”

As he had predicted, all hell broke loose. Rex, Fives, and the other remaining officers did their best to sort through it, but there wasn’t much they could do aside from saying that they’d do their best to make sure that squads weren’t split up and they didn’t know when they’d be getting new orders. 

“What about General Kenobi?” Fives asked Rex after all the shouting was over and the officers were sitting glumly over their drinks in the club, the officers from the other battalions currently on Coruscant avoiding them as if their bad luck might catch. “Maybe he could –”

Rex shook his head. “Even the generals have to listen to Command,” he said. “I’m not going to go begging to the Jedi.”

Except he didn’t have to, because General Kenobi turned up at the barracks the next morning.

Rex hadn’t seen him since he’d left _Resolute_ upon their return to Coruscant, and his first thought was that the general looked terrible. He was in fresh robes, but from the hollows under his eyes and his haunted expression Rex could tell that he hadn’t been sleeping. He still had one arm in a sling, the deep gash running along his hairline from his forehead to his left ear closed with neat sutures, and the bruises on his face were still a deep bluish purple, as though they weren’t healing properly.

“Captain Rex,” he said. “Can I have a moment?”

“Of course, General,” Rex said, trying to fight down his sudden leap of hope. Fives and Tango, with whom he’d been going through the rosters of remaining troopers, had both stood up and come to attention as Kenobi came in; the Jedi couldn’t have missed their sudden alertness at the words.

General Kenobi nodded to them both, then said, “May I sit?”

“Of course, sir.” Fives and Tango cleared away the piles of datapads and flimsiplasts as Kenobi took a seat at the table; they were in the club again, since the echoing emptiness of the barracks was less evident here. At Rex’s gesture, the two junior officers retreated to the opposite side of the room, where they continued staring at Kenobi anxiously.

“I’ve just come from High Command,” Kenobi said. “I want you to know that I argued against disbanding the Five-Oh-First, but I was overruled.”

Rex nodded, trying to hide his wince.

“But,” the general continued, “I was able to pull a few strings and get everyone from the Five-Oh-First transferred to the Two-Twelfth under my command. Your men won’t be split up. We might lose some of the gear, but no trooper from the Five-Oh-First will be assigned to any other battalion.”

“Sir,” Rex said, overcome.

General Kenobi smiled tiredly at him. “I know it’s not what you were hoping for, but –”

“Sir, it’s more than we hoped for,” Rex said. “We thought – well, we thought that we’d be lucky if we could keep individual squads together, let alone companies. None of us thought we’d be able to keep the battalion together.”

The general looked pleased. “All the paperwork’s been filed and submitted already,” he said. “I didn’t want to risk someone else trying to snag a squadron or two before it could be made official. As of an hour ago, every trooper from the Five-Oh-First is now in the Two-Twelfth. I know it’s rather abrupt, but –”

“Sir, that doesn’t matter,” Rex assured him, and saw General Kenobi’s smile relax into something more natural. He glanced over at Fives and Tango, who’d given up all pretense of working and were staring fixedly at them. “Can I tell the boys?”

“Go ahead, Captain,” Kenobi said, following his gaze. “I’ve got to get back to the Temple, but I’ll break the news to Cody first and send him over. I’m sure that you two can work out the details without my assistance –” He paused, waiting for Rex to respond.

“Of course, sir.” He and Cody had worked together often enough. “Can I ask about chain of command?”

“Cody is the ranking officer after me, but you’ll be second. After that it will go by date of commission and time in grade.”

Rex nodded. “Do you know when we’ll be deployed again?”

This time General Kenobi winced. “Probably fairly soon, unfortunately. I’m trying to delay it until most of the wounded are out of hospital, but we’re stretched too thin on the front for the troops to have the recovery time they deserve.”

“What about Odryn, sir? Will we be going back to look for survivors?”

Kenobi dropped his gaze, studying the scuffed surface of the table, his expression suddenly grief-stricken. Rex knew what he was going to say even before he opened his mouth. “No, we won’t be returning to Odryn.”

Rex shut his eyes for a moment, but all he could do was nod and say, “I understand, sir.”

“I’m sorry, Captain. If it was up to me, we’d go back, but I was overruled.”

Rex nodded again. “Does Commander – does Ahsoka know?”

“If she’s seen the HoloNet casualty reports,” Kenobi said, sounding reluctant. “I don’t want her to find out that way, but I’ve been looking for her since we got back and I haven’t been able to track her down.” He hesitated for a moment, then admitted, “Under normal circumstances the Order keeps track of Jedi who have resigned, but the war has made that very difficult. I’ve put the word out to my contacts; if she’s in the Republic, they’ll turn her up eventually. She deserves to hear about – to hear about Anakin in person.”

“I agree, sir,” Rex said.

“I’ll find her.” General Kenobi pushed his chair back and stood up; Rex did the same. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said. “If you can’t reach me on my private comlink, you can contact the Jedi Temple and they’ll push through the communication, but there shouldn’t be any difficulty. I’ll let you and Cody know as soon as we have new orders. And if anyone tries to poach any of your men or equipment, tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

Rex saluted him. “Yes, sir. And, General – thank you.”

Kenobi smiled again. “It was the least I could do, Captain,” he said. “Anakin would have –” His voice trailed off, his expression going bleak.

Rex would have known what to say to him if Kenobi had been a clone, but he never knew how to talk to Jedi when it came to grief. He’d heard a rumor from one of the clone troopers assigned to the Senate Building that General Kenobi had been spending a lot of time with Senator Padmé Amidala since they’d returned to Coruscant; he hoped it was true. Given that Jedi apparently didn’t believe in admitting that they didn’t have feelings, let alone talking about them, Senator Amidala was probably the only person who had a chance of getting through to him.

“I’ll send Cody over,” Kenobi said after a moment. “Gentlemen,” he added, nodding to Fives and Tango before he left the club. 

They joined Rex as soon as the door had shut behind him. “Well?” Tango demanded. “What did he say?”

“We’ve been transferred to the Two-Twelfth,” Rex said.

“How many of us?” Fives asked, tense.

Rex sat back down. “Everyone,” he said. “General Kenobi got the entire battalion transferred to his command.”

Fives dropped his head into his hands, shaking a little with relief. “He came through for us.”

“I didn’t ask,” Rex said.

Tango looked surprised. “You didn’t? But –”

“General Kenobi did it on his own,” Rex said.

“Can we tell the boys?” Fives asked, looking up. “I know we’ve all been worried, but going to the Two-Twelfth – almost everyone will be all right with that.”

Rex nodded. “Go ahead and spread the news,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Commander Cody and we’ll hash out the details. We’ve done enough joint missions with the Two-Twelfth that there shouldn’t be too much trouble integrating the battalions.”

Fives and Tango nodded. “Thank the general for us, Captain,” Tango said. “None of us thought –”

“I know,” Rex said. “Neither did I. But I think General Kenobi understands the importance of brothers.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene, about the reassignment of Anakin's clone troopers from the disestablished 501st to Obi-Wan's 212th (mentioned in [Wake 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2474326)), was originally written as a flashback for [Queen's Gambit 10](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1287526/chapters/3495986). It ended up not making the cut since all of the other Gambit flashback scenes are set in the Gambit universe, but was [posted to Tumblr](http://bedlamsbard.tumblr.com/post/90395848748/this-was-originally-going-to-lead-into-rexs-pov) later on. Minor adjustments have been made since then so that Obi-Wan's injuries from the Battle of Odryn are consistent with their description in Queen's Gambit and other upcoming stories. (This scene was the first time it was established that Obi-Wan was injured in the battle, so his injuries aren't mentioned in Wake or previous chapters of Queen's Gambit.)


	2. Padmé: there's gold falling from the ceiling of this world

Threepio came fluttering up to Padmé almost before the turbolift door had closed behind her, taking the cloak that she handed him. “Mistress Padmé, there’s a Jedi Knight here for you. He seems very –”

The rest of his words were lost as Padmé turned away, almost tripping over her skirts in her hurry to get to the verandah. She hadn’t expected Anakin back for days, maybe weeks or months if he was redeployed before he could return to Coruscant. His last assignment must have concluded much more quickly than either of them had expected.

The familiar humped shape of a Jedi speeder was visible at the verandah speeder dock, along with a brown-robed figure slumped on one of the couches. Padmé felt a pang of guilt as she approached, since Threepio hadn’t mentioned how long he had been waiting. Usually Anakin just joined her at the Senate Building, using one excuse or another for his presence there. He could at least have commed ahead –

“Ani,” she began, “I didn’t think –”

Shaking himself, as though he’d just woken up, the figure unfolded himself from the couch, and Padmé stopped dead. It wasn’t Anakin.

Obi-Wan Kenobi looked as though he had just stepped off the battlefield. His usually cream-colored robes were scorched and filthy, torn in places and with a spray across the front of something that was almost certainly blood. He had one arm in a sling beneath his cloak and an impressive black eye, along with a line of sutures down the left side of his face, near enough to his ear that he must have come close to losing it. Somehow, despite all this, Padmé’s first thought was, _no, he’s found out about us_ –

“Senator –” His voice sounded raw, as if he had been weeping, and abruptly she realized why he was here.

He took a step towards her, and without meaning to, Padmé took a step back. She raised her hands as though to ward him off. “No,” she said, “no, no, no –”

Her knees buckled under her and she slid down to the floor, trying to brace herself on the nearest column. Obi-Wan was there so quickly she didn’t even see him move, wrapping his good arm around her waist as he caught her. He smelled of burnt fabric and dried blood, bacta and sweat, but somehow his hands were gentle on her.

“No,” she begged him. “Obi-Wan, please, no, tell me it isn’t true, tell me –”

“I can’t.”

The last time she had seen that expression on his face had been thirteen years ago on Naboo.

Padmé screamed, or thought she did, or maybe she just wept. Obi-Wan put his good arm around her, holding her close, and said, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry –”

“How?” she gasped, and then, before he could answer, “You were supposed to be there, you were supposed to protect him, you should have –”

Obi-Wan flinched as though she had struck him. “There was an explosion,” he said. “There –” He stopped, gasping a little, and Padmé saw the wetness of tears in his eyes. “It must have been a trap. I was delayed getting to the rendezvous point, or – I saw it. I felt it. No one survived. I – he –”

Padmé clasped her hands to her mouth, trying to hold back her moan. She huddled in the curve of Obi-Wan’s arm, against the warmth of his body, and felt the tears stream down her face. “You’re sure?” she whispered. “You’re certain? There’s – there’s no mistake? He’s – Anakin’s really – he’s –”

She couldn’t say the word.

Obi-Wan nodded, setting his teeth into his lower lip and then wincing. “Yes.”

“But are you sure, are you really sure, this isn’t another Jedi trick –”

“I’m sure,” Obi-Wan said, and her ancestors help her, she had never heard him sound like that, never sound so raw, so broken. “Anakin is dead, Padmé.”

She screamed. She couldn’t help it. She screamed and screamed until her throat was raw, and then she wept, clinging desperately to Obi-Wan as he held onto her. She didn’t know how long they sat there, but when she looked up again the sun had gone down and the lamps on the verandah had turned themselves on, so they were curled together in the warm glow of the vapor-lights.

Padmé felt scraped thin, so fragile that even moving seemed to risk falling to pieces. The world had taken on a faintly unreal quality, as though she was watching it pass through warped glass. Her body didn’t feel like her own, except for the isolated places where Obi-Wan was touching her – his arm around her back, his palm flattening over her shoulder, his chest beneath her clenched fists, her cheek where she leaned against him, his knee nudged against her calf.

His face was wet when she looked up at him. He had been weeping too.

She had never seen Obi-Wan cry before.

There was blood on his face too, fresh blood, running down from the gash on his forehead where the sutures had split and mixing with his tears. Padmé reached up for him, half-blind, and laid her hand against his cheek. 

“You need a doctor.”

She didn’t realize who had spoken until she weighed the options and realized that it must have been her. She couldn’t recognize her own voice, didn’t remember saying the words.

Obi-Wan touched the side of his face, his hand brushing lightly over hers. He stared at the bright red on his fingers as if he couldn’t imagine how it had gotten there. “I…saw a medic on _Resolute_ ,” he said slowly. “But there wasn’t – I wasn’t – there were others who needed it more. It’s nothing.”

“I have a medical droid.” She stumbled to her feet, needing to do something, anything. _I have a medical droid; my husband is dead._

Obi-Wan followed more slowly, weighed down by exhaustion and grief, and as he did so his comlink began to beep. He fumbled it out from inside his sling, looked at it for a moment, then slapped it aside with a burst of energy that made the hair on the back of Padmé’s neck stand up. It went flying over the edge of the verandah and out of sight.

Anakin was still dead.

They went inside, out of the city lights, where Padmé found two of her handmaidens and Captain Typho waiting for them, apparently drawn by the sound of her screams but unwilling to disturb her. Obi-Wan stared at them blankly. They took one look at him, and, after apparently conferring silently between each other, Moteé went darting off.

Padmé sank down onto a sofa, pulling Obi-Wan down beside her.

“My lady?” Typho said gently. “Is there anything –”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing.”

Obi-Wan put his head in his hands, blood running down his wrist to drip onto the knees of his battered trousers. Padmé just sat, not realizing that she was still crying until Ellé came over with a handkerchief and tried to dab at her face. “My lady –”

Padmé stared at her. She felt her lips move silently for a moment, but didn’t know what to say, if there was anything to say.

Moteé came back a few minutes later, carrying a tray of covered dishes and followed by the medical droid. She put the tray down on the round table next to the sofa, taking the covers off the dishes as the droid stopped in front of Obi-Wan.

“May I see your injuries, sir?”

Slowly, Obi-Wan lifted his head and begin to shrug out of his cloak, wincing around his bad arm. The droid tutted, darting in. “Now how did a nice young man like you manage a nasty gash like this?”

“I…fell off a tank,” Obi-Wan said, and Padmé looked at him sharply, because Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t just _fall_.

“And what about this broken arm?”

Obi-Wan stared down at it. “I don’t remember. It might have been – or – I don’t remember.”

“Have you considered that you may be in shock?”

Obi-Wan raised his gaze to the droid. “I’m a Jedi. We don’t get shock.”

“I would beg to differ, sir,” said the droid. “Now, hold still, please.”

Padmé looked away as the droid leaned in, hearing Obi-Wan hiss in pain. Moteé tried to hand her a plate of food.

“I’m not hungry.”

“You need to eat, my lady,” Moteé said firmly. “You were in the Senate all day, you never remember you have to eat –”

“I can’t –”

“Sir, you have a concussion,” the medical droid told Obi-Wan, who just said, “I know.”

Padmé took the plate that Moteé was still holding, more to have something to do with her hands than because she actually wanted to eat. Moteé was right, she hadn’t eaten since she had left for the Senate this morning, but the idea of food made her nauseous.

Beside her, Obi-Wan gasped in pain, the droid making another tutting noise. Padmé looked over to see it peeling a strip of charred, bloody cloth away from a blaster burn, Obi-Wan blinking at the wound in mild puzzlement, as if surprised to see it there.

“Gregor, why don’t you and Emdee take General Kenobi into one of the spare rooms?” Ellé said.

Captain Typho nodded, watching Obi-Wan warily. “Can you walk?” he asked.

Obi-Wan nodded, winced again, then levered himself to his feet with Typho’s help, leaving his blood-stained cloak behind on the sofa as he leaned on the other man’s shoulder. He was starting to tremble with the agony of his wounds and the aftermath of his emotions; Typho wrapped an arm around his waist to support him, half-carrying him towards the direction of the bedrooms. The medical droid followed along behind, muttering to itself.

Once they had gone, Padmé set the plate aside untouched. Moteé pushed Obi-Wan’s abandoned cloak aside and took his place, putting an arm around her shoulders. Padmé leaned against her, staring blankly at the painting on the wall across from her without actually seeing it. She had seen it a thousand times before; she couldn’t for the life of her remember what it was of.

Anakin was dead. Anakin was _dead_ , blown to pieces on some far distant planet Padmé would probably never be able to visit, and he would never – she would never –

He _couldn’t_ be gone.

Except she was certain that Obi-Wan would never have come to her if he wasn’t, if there had been any question; if there had been any question Obi-Wan would never have left the planet. Obi-Wan would never leave Anakin behind, never. Which mean Anakin was dead, really dead, and this wasn’t all some kind of horrible mistake –

Padmé began to cry again, silently, and couldn’t stop until Typho emerged from the back of the apartment. She swiped her hand across her eyes, trying to get herself under control as he came over to kneel down in front of her. Ellé pressed a handkerchief into her hand.

“General Kenobi is asleep,” Typho said gently. “Should I tell the Jedi Temple that he’s here?”

“No.” Right now, Padmé didn’t want to see another Jedi again as long as she lived. Except for Obi-Wan, but he wasn’t – he’d come to her. He wasn’t like the rest of them.

“When you say asleep,” Moteé began cautiously.

“I mean passed out from all the painkillers Emdee pumped into him,” Typho said. He gave Padmé a worried look. “Emdee says that he was very lucky to get off as lightly as he did, considering his injuries. Are you certain you don’t want me to contact the Jedi, my lady?”

“He’s here now. They would just have to wake him up,” Ellé said when Padmé didn’t respond. She put a hand under Padmé’s elbow and said, “Come on, milady. Let’s get you…let’s get you cleaned up.”

Padmé put a hand to her face. Her hair was starting to come down from its headpiece, and her makeup was smeared. _Good_ , she thought, and had to fight back the sudden urge to grab a knife and hack off all her hair, claw her nails down her cheeks and tear at her clothes and scream, the way a traditional Naboo widow would. Except she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell anyone that she had been widowed, ancestors help her, because everyone who knew was in this room with her right now – she couldn’t even tell Obi-Wan.

She would have to walk into the Senate tomorrow as if nothing had happened.

For a moment the idea was almost too much to bear. Padmé sat still on the sofa, frozen with the enormity of it, of having to pretend that Anakin’s death meant nothing – that she didn’t even know. Anyone who heard that Obi-Wan had come here from the shipyards would think that she had been sleeping with him, not Anakin, and that he had come to her for comfort.

“My lady?” Ellé repeated, and then, when Padmé didn’t move, “Padmé?”

Padmé should at least have been able to mourn her husband as befit a widow, but all the Naboo rituals of mourning were public, and she couldn’t do that to Anakin’s memory. _Does it even matter?_

What could the Jedi do to him now, after all?

But it did matter. Anakin would have thought it mattered.

Padmé couldn’t even cut her hair, the way a widow should, because anyone who knew anything about the Naboo would recognize that for what it was. On Naboo, only a newly widowed woman wore her hair short. If no one else, the Supreme Chancellor would recognize that for what it was, and Padmé couldn’t risk that.

She covered her face with her hands, trembling, and after a moment, let Ellé lever her up. She and Moteé took her into her dressing room, and Padmé let herself be wiped clean of makeup, let herself be stripped out of her gown, let the heavy weight of her long hair come down from her headpiece. She should have clawed her nails down her cheeks, torn her clothes, hacked her hair off, but she couldn’t do any of it. She couldn’t even mourn him properly.

“Are you sure you don’t want to eat something, my lady?” Moteé asked again.

Padmé shook her head. She didn’t think she could choke down food right now if her life depended on it. Not when Anakin was –

He wouldn’t even have a grave. She couldn’t even give him that.

Ellé hugged her gently, like she thought Padmé might break. “Do you want one of us to stay with you tonight?” she asked. “So you won’t be –”

She hesitated over the last word, but Padmé filled it in automatically. _Alone, alone, alone._

“No,” she said. “That’s not –”

She stopped in the doorway of her bedroom, staring at her empty bed and feeling a lump form in the pit of her stomach. Anakin’s bed.

“I _can’t_ ,” she said out loud, distressed. “Not here –”

Moteé turned her quickly away from the room, shutting the door behind her so that Padmé didn’t need to look at it. Ellé said, “I’ll get one of the spare bedrooms ready. It’s all right, my lady – it will be all right.”

Padmé didn’t know what was going through her head, for her to think she could promise that, but she leaned against the wall and put her head in her hands. Moteé put an arm around her shoulders as Ellé hurried away, pressing a kiss to Padmé’s hairline.

Padmé just stood there for a moment, feeling small and helpless and weak, then realized that there was one thing she could still do. “I’m going to check on Obi-Wan.”

Moteé started to say something, then changed her mind and just nodded instead, trailing along behind her as Padmé made her way down the hallway.

Obi-Wan was in the Water Room, so named because it had a delicate water sculpture that took up half of one wall. The light sound of running water filled the room as Padmé came in, bending over the bed to rest her palm against Obi-Wan’s forehead. He was limp in sleep, his bad arm in a flex-cast and bacta bandages applied to the wounds Padmé could see. The cut on his head had been sutured again, but Padmé could tell that it was almost certainly going to leave a scar. She thought that Obi-Wan could probably carry off a scar, though.

It took her a moment to realize that he was crying in his sleep, silent but unmistakable.

Padmé sank down onto the bed beside him, pulling her knees up to her chest. His lightsaber was resting on the nightstand, where he would see it the moment he woke up, and she reached out to run her fingers over the cool metal hilt. She didn’t know why, she just wanted to feel something, something real, and she had always found something surprisingly solid about lightsabers. _This weapon is your life_ , Anakin had said once, quoting Obi-Wan.

Moteé stepped around to take the pile of Obi-Wan’s filthy, blood-stained clothes from the chair where they had been set aside. Padmé could see the places where the medical droid must have cut them off him.

Moteé gave them a doubtful look. “I can take these to be cleaned before morning –”

“Burn them.” Padmé’s voice was harsh from weeping.

Moteé hesitated. “But won’t Master Kenobi –”

“It’s not like they’re going to be wearable just because they’re clean. Or that he’ll ever want to wear them again.” She swallowed. “He can wear something of Ani’s.”

“All right,” Moteé said after a moment, and carried the pile out of the room.

Padmé lay down next to Obi-Wan, curling up around a pillow. Her earlier flush of fury had long since faded to despair; no matter what she did, she couldn’t seem to summon it up again, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. It wasn’t as though it would bring Anakin back.

At least the sound of Obi-Wan’s breathing reminded her there was someone else still alive in the galaxy who had loved Anakin as much as she had.

She didn’t remember falling asleep.

*

She woke up a little hours later when the medical droid came back to give Obi-Wan more painkillers, opening one eye to see Emdee leaning over Obi-Wan with a syringe and Obi-Wan submitting sleepily. Either Moteé or Ellé must have put a blanket over her, because Padmé could feel the heavy weight of it on top of her. She folded her fingers around the quilted silk and turned her head at Obi-Wan’s slight hiss, then heard him let his breath out as the drugs started to kick in. Emdee’s optical receptors glowed green in the darkness of the room, the water sculpture a trickling, familiar symphony in the background.

Obi-Wan was asleep again within moments, his breathing – which had gone ragged as the first dose of painkillers wore off – evening out again. Padmé shut her eyes as Emdee left the room, the door sliding quietly closed behind it. In the dark and quiet she could pretend – no, she couldn’t. She couldn’t pretend anything.

She choked out a sob into the pillow she was clutching, then felt Obi-Wan shift, apparently not quite asleep after all. He caught her fingers with his good hand; Padmé clung to him for dear life, like he was the only thing in the galaxy that could keep her from drowning. Neither of them spoke.

*

The next time Padmé woke it was morning, the thin light of a Coruscant dawn trickling in around the edges of the curtains. For a few minutes she just lay where she was, as exhausted as if she hadn’t slept at all, and stared at the door. She could hear Obi-Wan’s breathing soft in the bed behind her.

Anakin would have been mad with jealousy if he had been here.

Padmé had to bite down hard on a knuckle to keep from sobbing, but she didn’t think she had any tears left. She felt empty, wrung out and hollow, as if there was nothing left of her but a shell. Everything else had been stripped away.

She was looking at the door when it slid open, Ellé peering cautiously inside before she saw Padmé watching her. She came quickly over on slippered feet and knelt down by the side of the bed.

“There’s a master from the Jedi Temple on the main holocomm,” she murmured. “He’s asking if General Kenobi is here. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him –” Padmé’s voice cracked. She coughed, glanced over her shoulder to make sure she hadn’t woken Obi-Wan – he was on his side, curled around his bad arm – and then managed to croak out, “Tell him to go to blazes.”

“My lady…” Ellé’s expression was worried. She didn’t look like she had had a much better night than Padmé had.

“I don’t care about the damned Jedi,” Padmé hissed. “They got Ani killed.”

She had to stop and gasp, the words like a stab to the gut. She hadn’t said it before. She hadn’t made it real before, but now she had said it and it was real, it was –

Ellé leaned forward, her eyes wide with concern. Padmé shifted aside, folding her hands into the quilt covering her.

“The Jedi got Anakin killed,” she said again, her voice softer now. “They can at least let Obi-Wan sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That Obi-Wan came straight from the shipyards to Padme's apartment after the Battle of Odryn is first mentioned in [Wake 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2418374) and comes up a couple of times afterwards, mostly in Queen's Gambit. The beginning of this story was [originally posted on Tumblr](http://bedlamsbard.tumblr.com/post/91903984178/i-went-poking-through-my-concept-writing-folders), but it's been filled out and expanded since then, with a couple of minor adjustments to make it consistent with the other stories in this series. More or less consistent, I should say; Padme's and Obi-Wan's memories of the events in this story aren't clear and don't quite line up with their description in Gambit, and that's purposeful. Also on purpose is that Obi-Wan initially thinks that Anakin was killed, while by Wake he's come to the conclusion that Anakin is still alive.


	3. Rex: Red Sky at Morning

The dig site, when they reached it, wasn’t much to see. It was near the center of one of the Feeorin villages, a ramshackle collection of rickety huts built on a steep hillside that still bore evidence of the inhabitants’ hasty evacuation. Rex sent squads to clear the huts and make sure that there weren’t any nasty surprises waiting inside while General Skywalker approached the marked off square of cleared soil where the dig was. Flickering holographic ribbons stood up at irregular intervals throughout the square; Rex didn’t know enough about archaeology to have any idea what they signified.

“What do the Seppies want with this heap, sir?” Fives asked doubtfully, looking around. They had seen a lot of Separatist-occupied planets over the years, but there was usually some kind of reason for that: strategy, resources, morale. Odryn, small, poor, and out of the way, didn’t have any of those.

General Skywalker had gone right up to the edge of the marked off area, peering over into the pit. It was about the size of a gunship and a half, deep enough that two clones stacked on top of each other would just be able to see over the edge. He and General Kenobi had both been cagy about why the Republic was even bothering to take the planet back; at this stage in the war useless worlds like this were being abandoned to the Separatists because the Republic didn’t have the resources to hold them.

“It’s a Jedi thing,” he said, sounding distracted. “We’ve got a – a historical interest in it.” He stood back from the dig, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, and looked sheepish. “It’s probably nothing, but the Council insisted.”

Rex and Fives exchanged a look. “If you say so, sir,” Rex said; he hadn’t had many dealings with Jedi aside from General Skywalker, General Kenobi, and Commander Tano, and his other experiences had left him a little wary even of the Jedi whose clone commanders spoke highly of them. His three – well, two now – were enough for him.

“I’m going to let Obi-Wan know we beat him here and have a look around,” General Skywalker said. “Rex, Fives –”

“Secure the area, set up a perimeter, and set patrols,” Rex said, and the general grinned.

“That’s about what I was going to say. I don’t know how long we’ll be here – Kenobi’s going to make that call when he gets here.” He glanced around with a self-satisfied air to it. “ _If_ he gets here, since he’s apparently dragging his feet.”

“It’s those tanks of his, sir,” said Fives. He scuffed a boot against the loose rocky soil. “This ground can’t be easy for them, not on those slopes.”

“Well, whatever excuse he wants to use,” General Skywalker grinned. He tapped his comlink and turned away.

Rex gathered Torrent Company and took them off to the far edge of the village, while Fives went off to join the rest of Shadow Company as they secured the immediate area. With Fives and the other lieutenants conferenced in on the lower-level command frequency, Rex said, “Let’s pull the perimeter to five klicks out, centered on the village. We can increase it to ten or fifteen later if the generals want. Our surveys show some flat ground over to the east of the village, looks like it might be terraced fields or something. We need to clear a landing zone for the gunships, otherwise we’re going to have to hike out before we can get picked up.” The land sloped too heavily around here for the gunships to land, even to hover; Rex didn’t have the faintest idea why the Feeorins had thought this was a great place to build a village.

Tup, standing beside him, said, “I can take a squad to go check it out, Captain. That’s within the perimeter, so –”

Rex never heard what he said next. One minute Tup was speaking; the next he was lying flat on his back almost ten meters from where he had been standing, something like a subsonic boom still resonating in his bones, the inside of his head ringing. His helmet had been blown off, and he blinked up at the grayish sky above him. He was certain the sky had been blue not ten minutes ago.

It took him a moment to recognize the smoke rising up against the clouds.

Rex stumbled to his feet, catching himself as a nearby tree as he almost fell back over, and stared. It was a dark mushroom cloud, shot through with what looked like lightning; Rex’s first instinct was, _what, the Seppies are using_ nukes _now?_ , except then he realized that helmet or not, the radiation alarms on his armor would be going off. Well, that and he’d probably be too dead to care, since the mushroom cloud was close enough that the epicenter couldn’t be more than a klick off. Or even closer, because –

It was centered on the village. The village where Rex had left half of his men and General Skywalker.

Rex jabbed at the comlink on his wrist, conscious of his men staggering to his feet around him. “General Skywalker! General Skywalker, sir, can you hear me? General?”

Nothing. Just dead air, not even static.

Trying to ignore the surge of panic in his chest, Rex tried Baxter’s frequency, with the same result, then those of the other officers in order of rank. Nothing. He tried General Skywalker’s frequency again, got dead air for the second time, then grimaced and tried Commander Cody’s. If the 212th wasn’t answering –

But Cody responded immediately. _“Rex, what happened? We saw the blast –”_

“I don’t know,” Rex said. “I’ve got Torrent Company with me, but I can’t raise General Skywalker or any of my men. Is –”

 _“General Kenobi’s down. He –”_ Cody hesitated long enough that Rex felt his gut clench. Then there was a moan, somewhere in the background, and Cody, the connection still open, said, _“General? Are you – hold still, sir, and let Thorn get a look at –”_

All the other members of Torrent Company had drawn close to listen, Kix carrying Rex’s fallen helmet.

His voice tinny with distance and pain, General Kenobi said, _“Anakin –”_

_“General, hold still – blast!”_

“Cody, what in blazes is going on?” Rex demanded.

 _“I’ll call you back!”_ Cody said, his voice tight with strain, and cut the connection.

Rex lowered his wrist to find all the members of Torrent Company staring at him. All except – “Where’s Halo?”

Halo was lying crumpled at the foot of the tree he had been thrown into, his head twisted sharply to one side from the force of the impact. Swallowing, Rex checked the life signs on his armor just to be sure, then reached down to pull Halo’s helmet off. His eyes were open, staring; he must have broken his neck when he hit the tree. It would have been fast, at least.

Rex reached out to close his eyes, then froze as his comlink buzzed. Tango’s voice came through after a moment, fuzzy and barely recognizable. _“–ne there? Captain Rex? General Skywalker?”_

“Rex here. Tango, where are you? Do you have eyes on the blast zone?”

Rex straightened up, taking his helmet from Kix and pulling it on. None of the internal systems seemed to have been damaged, at least.

Tango’s voice went in and out, so that Rex caught about three words of every five. _“–ing from the – crater, I’m not – ife signs – there’s some – ings, what did you – e chu ta!”_

The curse came through loud and clear, even if nothing else did; a moment later the connection cut out. When Rex tried to restore it, all he got was dead air again.

Rex swore and drew his blasters, giving his men quick orders. They were maybe a klick from the village center where he had left General Skywalker; Rex didn’t know where Fives and Shadow Company were or if there was even anyone else in the 501st left alive. The 212th seemed like it was having its own problems, for which Rex didn’t blame them, and anyway he didn’t know how far off they were; the schedule had gotten blown pretty much the moment they’d made planetfall seven hours ago.

They approached from the tree line, moving fast and low. Rex had been looking for the half-familiar shapes of the Feeorin huts; when he didn’t see them, he thought that he had managed to overshoot, then realized that they weren’t there anymore.

He came to a startled halt under the cover of a spiky evergreen-looking tree, staring in shock at the massive crater dug out of the ground where the village had been. The mushroom cloud still hung over it, though it was beginning to dissipate; this close there was no question where its epicenter had been. There were curses from the other clones in Torrent Company as they drew close enough to see the extent of the devastation.

Rex felt like swearing himself, though this time he contained the urge. From what they could see of it, the crater was perfectly round; it looked as though it had sliced open the earth and in fact –

Living stars protect them. Rex could see a white-armored clone trooper who had been cut in two, the top half of his torso terminating abruptly at the lip of the crater. From here he couldn’t tell who it was. From the look of it, he hadn’t been the only clone to die that way.

Off Jesse’s gasped protest, Kix broke free of the tree line to run to him. Rex motioned the others to stay back and followed him, keeping his blasters out to cover Kix as he knelt down next to the dead clone.

“It’s Ritz,” Kix said unnecessarily, looking at the constellations painted on the shoulders of his armor. He swallowed, but they had seen worse over the course of the war, and leaned down to inspect the wounds. “Clean edge, not a blade, not ragged the way you’d expect from an explosion, not a laser. It looks like it was just…vaporized. But I’ve seen that before and this doesn’t feel –” He hesitated for a moment, struggling for the word, then finished, “– right.”

“Yeah.”

Movement at the corner of his vision caught his eye. “Down!” Rex hissed, and caught Kix by the back of his neck to force him low to the ground. 

Kix, used to being hauled around by other clones, dropped without protest, then whispered, “What is it?”

“Not sure. Thought I saw something.” He made a hand signal in the direction of the rest of Torrent Company to tell them to hold their position, then slowly inched forward to the edge of the crater, keeping his belly flush with the ground. What he saw nearly made him retch.

The village was gone. The crater had carved a bowl into the rocky hillside, immense heat turning some of the loose soil to glass; there was no sign of the clones that had been there – no bodies, no armor, no weapons, none of the equipment they had arrived with. The only movement came from a dark figure at the center of the village. Rex thought, with a burst of wild hope, that it might be General Skywalker, then pulled his macrobinoculars out and realized that there was no way it could be.

“What…is that?” Kix said, doing the same. He sounded completely bewildered.

“I have no idea.”

The figure was larger than man-size, clad in black armor and an unfamiliar helmet, with a long cloak that fell to its feet. The readouts on his macrobinoculars indicated an internal power source of some sort as well as one life sign, a little confused the way they always were around General Grievous. Another organic with cybernetic implants, maybe. Then the figure moved, maybe sensing that it was being watched, and Rex saw the lightsaber on its belt.

The macrobinoculars identified the weapon automatically, blowing up the image so that Rex could get a close-up view of it. He blinked in surprise. _If that’s General Skywalker’s lightsaber –_

Then blasterfire rang out from the far side of the crater, and Rex discarded that last shred of hope as the creature ignited the lightsaber in a streak of red plasma, batting back the bolts with ease. He jerked the macrobinoculars up, identifying the shooters near a rock formation shaped like a top hat.

“It’s Snout’s platoon,” he told Kix, then winced as he saw a clone fall from a deflected blaster bolt. “That idiot –”

He ducked reflexively as the deep boom of an AT-TE sounded in the distance, followed by the high-pitched whine of vulture droids. Blasterfire sounded from the direction of the 212th’s last known location, comfortingly close. Right now, even if it came with droids, Rex really wanted the support.

Blasterfire rang out much closer as another clone platoon ran out of the woods, firing as they went and dropping down along the eastern curve of the crater to minimize the chances of return fire. Rex squinted at the marks on their armor, identifying one of Fives’ platoons. That meant the others were probably –

Crossfire marked their positions. He didn’t know if Fives and Snout were collaborating – Snout was from one of Tango’s companies – but together they were doing a pretty good job of trying to pin down the being in the crater, who was deflecting the bolts with irritating ease.

None of them were responding to Rex’s comm calls.

When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw Torrent Company hesitating at the edge of the tree line, obviously wanting to join the firefight but unwilling to do so without a direct order. Rex started to raise his own blasters, then thought better of it. There were rules of engagement for this sort of thing, but all of them had obviously gone straight out the window when the others had arrived and seen the devastation left of the village.

“Back,” he told Kix. “Stay low.”

Kix nodded, pulling his blaster off the belt holster. Rex didn’t think that the strange being had noticed them yet, but he didn’t want to draw its attention until he knew more. They scrambled back to the tree line, Rex glancing over his shoulder as they ran. They were almost there when his comlink sprang back to life on the lower-level command frequencies he had the last settings on, platoon leaders and company commanders all trying to talk to each other.

“Pull back!” Rex snarled into his comlink, effectively shutting them all up.

 _“But, Captain –”_ someone started to protest. Rex thought that it was probably Snout, who didn’t have the best impulse control at the best of times, but even for another clone it was sometimes hard to tell who was who via comm traffic, especially in the middle of a firefight.

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

 _“Snout, don’t be an idiot,”_ Tango told him briskly; even in the middle of the chaos Rex was gratified to realize that he had guessed right.

He heard Tango and Fives start giving orders to withdraw, the sound of blasterfire apparently unceasing but starting to shift as various platoons and squadrons started to obey his order. Rex and Kix skidded to a halt under cover of the tree line, Tup and the others pressing forward to ask what had happened. None of them had been dumb enough to disobey Rex’s order to hold their position, but that meant they didn’t know what all the shooting was about.

“There’s something down there –” Kix began, just as vulture droids swooped low over them, laserfire cutting through Snout’s platoon.

Rex shouted in pure horror, jerking his blasters up to fire at the vultures as they came within range. He, or one of his men, struck a target; one of the vultures burst into smoking flames and went spiraling down to explode in a patch of sparse woodland.

 _“STAPs approaching half a klick southeast of point two-zero!”_ someone warned over the comm, and Rex briefly forgot about the being down in the crater; that was almost on top of their position.

“Jax, Kras, take ‘em out!” he ordered; those were the two best snipers in the squadron and both of them were armed with long-range blasters. He could see the STAPs now; their approach had been covered by the sharp slope of the terrain. He couldn’t tell if the droids on them had noticed them yet.

Blasterfire barked close by and first one droid, then another droid fell as Jax and Kras made their shots. Rex fired as soon as the STAPs were in range, winging one of the light hovercraft and sending it into a tumble that crashed into one of its companions. The remaining three came on relentlessly, blasterfire spraying towards them as the clones dove for cover.

The vanguard of the 212th arrived with a scream of overstressed machinery, two-person speeder bikes with mounted machine guns riddling the STAPs with blasterfire. General Kenobi vaulted out of the bike he had been riding, his lightsaber darting sideways to slash through a battle droid’s torso almost carelessly. Cody, in the sidecar, dove over to grab the controls and keep the bike from continuing forward into a tree.

General Kenobi hit the ground but didn’t bother to deactivate his lightsaber or look back at his troops. He ran to the edge of the crater, batting aside a stray blaster bolt from a mostly dismantled droid before Rex put it out of its misery.

_“Anakin!”_

His anguished cry cut clearly through the sound of blasterfire. More battle droids were coming out of the woods, the vultures coming back for another pass, but General Kenobi didn’t seem to have noticed.

“General, get down!” Rex shouted, and dove for him just as a vulture droid swooped low over him. He caught Kenobi around the waist, throwing them off the lip of the crater just as blasterfire sprayed the ground where he had been standing. They went rolling down the glass-smooth sides into the bowl of the thing, the general automatically deactivating his lightsaber so that he didn’t skewer either himself or Rex. They landed hard enough that Rex was momentarily stunned, his helmet knocked off-kilter so that all he could see was blackness. He felt General Kenobi pulling free of him, the sound of his lightsaber igniting and an incoherent snarl that didn’t even come close to being words.

Rex scrambled up to his feet, pulling his helmet off, and looked straight at the dark-clad being he had seen earlier.

Up close, there was something about it that repelled him, a kind of dark energy that made Rex start to draw back, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. Rex was used to looking at helmeted clones, but there was something just _wrong_ about this being, at his own reflection in the black lenses that served it for eyes. He could hear it breathing, a heavy, oppressive sound that sounded oddly forced. For an instant he felt the weight of its attention on him, then it turned its head a little to focus on General Kenobi.

Kenobi was standing beside and a little in front of Rex, his lightsaber ignited and in front of him. This close, Rex could see what he hadn’t seen before: that there was blood all down the left side of his face and staining the shoulder of his robes, matted in his hair. After a moment he had to look away, because there was too much agony on his face, a kind of horrified blankness in his eyes that Rex had never seen on him before.

“Obi-Wan,” said the dark being, and Rex flinched without meaning to. Its – _his_ – voice was completely artificial, dark, deep, and almost without inflection. “It is you.”

Kenobi shook his head slightly, the blankness not fading from his eyes. “I don’t know you,” he said.

Rex resisted the urge to push between the stranger and General Kenobi, because everything about the general was screaming _walking wounded_ , and that wasn’t even counting his head injury. Instead he pulled his helmet on, hooking his hands around his blaster grips. He could still hear blasterfire far too close for comfort, but everything seemed to have narrowed to the immediate space between the stranger and the general, both of them staring at each other like they had forgotten there was a galaxy outside the two of them.

“It _is_ you,” said the dark being again, and started to take a step forward.

Rex’s blasters cleared their holsters even before he had had the conscious thought, jerking up to level at the being’s head. “Don’t move.”

The creature turned his head a little to study him, or at least that was what Rex assumed he was doing. “Captain Rex,” he said after a moment. “It has been a long time.”

If there was any inflection in his voice, Rex couldn’t hear it.

“I don’t know you either,” he said. “And I don’t want to.”

General Kenobi didn’t look at him, his gaze still fixed on the stranger. For a moment Rex saw confusion on his face, something like recognition, then he said, “What did you do to him?”

The being’s focus shifted off of Rex back to Kenobi. He tipped his head slightly to one side. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, old man.”

Kenobi flicked his blade up. This time, when he spoke there was nothing but fury in his voice; Rex actually felt the air shiver around them. “Where is Anakin Skywalker? What did you do to him?”

“Do not play stupid, old man. You know that Anakin Skywalker no longer exists. You know I killed him.”

Rex didn’t even see General Kenobi move. One moment he was there and the next he wasn’t, his blade a blue blur as the being’s crimson blade deflected his strokes. Kenobi drove him back across the bowl of the crater, so fast and so brutal that all Rex could do was stare for a few seconds before he shook himself out of it and tried to line up a shot.

_“Incoming!”_

With no cover available, Rex threw himself down, flattening himself against the ground as the world shook around him. Debris rained down, bouncing off his armor; when there were no further blasts he raised his head cautiously, squinting as he tried to locate General Kenobi and the stranger.

They had both been thrown apart by the blow, Kenobi picking himself up a little more quickly than the other. Blue gleamed as he reignited his lightsaber, then he launched himself across the crater in a fast, aggressive move better suited for General Skywalker’s fighting style than his own.

The stranger still got his lightsaber up in time to beat off the blow.

A sound behind him made Rex spin, raising his blasters, but it was Cody, Kix, and two 212th clones he didn’t recognize immediately sliding down the slope of the crater. Cody tried to speak, but the sound was covered by the deep booms of the AT-TEs and the Separatist tanks, the lighter barks of blasterfire, the screeches of swoop bikes, walkers, and STAPs. Rex glanced up automatically, but from here he couldn’t see anything going on above except for the vulture droids still swooping across the battlefield.

Cody shifted his blaster, then grabbed his arm and shouted directly into the part of the helmet that processed audio. “What in blazes is he doing?”

“That – _thing_ – told him he killed General Skywalker!” Rex yelled back.

Cody let out a blistering curse that Rex had never heard him use before, then flinched as another missile struck the lip of the crater, sending more debris down at them. Someone screamed nearby, high-pitched and sobbing in pain before the sound was abruptly cut off.

“We need to exfil!” Cody said. “We can’t hold them off, there are –” The rest of the words were swallowed up by an explosion.

“How bad?” Rex demanded.

Cody told him.

“Call it in!” Rex glanced across the crater at Kenobi and the stranger. “I’ll take care of him. Get those gunships down here now, Cody, or we won’t have anyone left to evacuate!”

Cody jerked his head in a nod, speaking rapidly into his comlink. Rex keyed into the same frequency, hearing the frantic slightly tone to Admiral Yularen’s replies; the space squids didn’t seem to be having a much easier time of it than they were right now.

 _How did our intelligence scrag us this badly?_ He shoved the thought aside, yelling, “Kix, you, and – whoever you two are, with me, now!”

They ran across the broad crater in the direction of General Kenobi and the stranger, jinking and jerking to avoid blaster bolts from the STAPs zipping over the bowl. Fortunately they mostly seemed to be occupied with the clones on the surface – _fortunately_ , Rex thought, and hated himself for it.

Another explosion, a concussion grenade that must have missed its target and slammed into the wall of the crater, sent them scattering, thrown wide. Rex hit the ground and rolled, losing his grip on one of his blasters as he did so. He lay still when he finally stopped, gasping and feeling pain spark brightly around his ribs. The chaos around him had faded to white noise.

The sound of General Kenobi screaming cut through it like a laser.

Rex managed to get himself up on one elbow, every muscle in his body protesting, and felt his heart stop at what he saw. General Kenobi was flat on his back, his lightsaber nowhere to be seen, with the dark being blasted _standing_ on him, one booted foot grinding down on his left arm, another resting on his chest. The general screamed again, pain and fury mingled together, the most horrible sound Rex had ever heard. Rex fumbled his remaining blaster free from under his body, aimed carefully to make sure that he didn’t hit Kenobi, and fired a three-round burst of shots.

The creature batted them aside with his lightsaber, shifting position so that Kenobi’s scream this time was pure agony, then more blasterfire from behind Rex drove him back. Cody and the two 212th troopers ran forward, firing as they went; Kix stopped to get a shoulder beneath Rex’s arm and drag him upright.

Miraculously, General Kenobi was already on his feet again, his injured arm held close to his body as he held out his right hand for his lightsaber. It slapped into his palm; he spat blood to one side and then ignited it.

“General!”

“He’s _mine_.” Kenobi’s snarl was pure vitriol.

Another explosion sent them all staggering, then blasterfire sprayed the area around them. Rex ducked instinctively, bracing himself on Kix as he turned to track the movement of the vulture droids above them. He fired with his remaining blaster, winging it, but that didn’t do more than get the blasted thing’s attention. It rolled over, swooping around for another pass, and Rex had enough time to think, _well, this is it, it’s been fun –_

Laserfire turned it into a fireball that slammed into the wall of the crater.

For a moment Rex just stared, then the familiar shadow of a LAAT/i gunship settled over him. He could have wept with relief, triggering the general frequency on his comlink. “Everybody, go! Now, now, now!”

One of the gunships began to settle down in the bowl of the crater, the shooters hanging out the sides seemingly frozen. Rex swallowed a curse and turned to see what was keeping them and saw the stranger and General Kenobi locked in combat again, though this time it was obvious that Kenobi was coming off worse, one-handed and injured as he was. Cody and his men were hovering back, trying to line up their shots, but the duelists were moving too quickly.

“You!” Rex shouted at the gunship’s snipers. “Covering fire at three o’clock and nine o’clock! Now!”

The reassuring sound of DC-17 blasterfire filled his ears. Shrugging Kix off, Rex staggered forward, gratified to see the duelists break apart as they both tried to see where the blasterfire was coming from. Rex fired as he did so, Kix and then Cody’s men getting the idea and doing the same. The stranger took a step backwards, his lightsaber flicking out to deflect the bolts. General Kenobi actually started to follow him, his expression a fixed rictus of rage.

“General!”

Rex was so focused on him that he didn’t actually see the stranger move, just heard Kix’s incoherent yell as Cody’s two clones fell. The dark being turned on them, his lightsaber burning in his fist, and Cody lunged at General Kenobi. “Sir! We have to go now!”

For a moment Rex didn’t think that he would do it.

“Obi-Wan,” said the creature in his strange, mechanical voice. He stepped towards him, deflecting a blaster bolt almost absently.

“General!”

Kenobi let out a sound that was partially a scream and partially a snarl and flung his good arm out in a throwing motion, deactivating his lightsaber as he did so. The dark figure went flying backwards, his lightsaber spinning out of his hand. Kenobi still didn’t move, staring at him.

Rex, Cody, and Kix reached him at the same time. “Sir, come on!” Kix said, a little frantically; the stranger was struggling upright and the general wouldn’t _move_ –

And then he did, half-running with them, half-dragged by Cody’s grip on his good shoulder. He kept looking back, his grip white-knuckled on his lighstaber hilt. Rex practically threw him into the gunship, dislodging the dead body of one of the shooters – killed by a deflected blaster bolt – and boosted Kix inside before catching Cody’s hand. The other clone pulled him up as the gunship lifted, the dark figure running after them now. Rex saw him draw back his arm as if to throw his lightsaber, then the pilot triggered the gunship’s doors to close and seal and banked sharply aside, the unsecured men sliding across the floor to thump against the opposite door.

The general let out a muffled yell, white-faced with pain; Kix started to scramble for his medical kit before the gunship made another sharp jink and they all went sliding again. Rex could still hear blasterfire rattling down below, the dull bursts of anti-aircraft fire exploding around them. He grabbed for the nearest safety strap, hanging on grimly as the ship jerked to avoid incoming fire. He could tell they were climbing now, trying to gain altitude and exit atmosphere.

When he looked over again, he saw that Cody had hooked one arm in another safety strap and was sitting on the floor near one wall, his other arm folded in the front of General Kenobi’s robes. Kenobi wasn’t protesting; he had passed out. Blood was smeared across the floor and Cody’s dirty white-and-yellow armor – from Kenobi’s head wound, from his injured arm; Rex could see two places where the bone had broken through the skin and the fabric of his sleeve. His lightsaber hilt rolled back and forth across the gunship floor; Rex snagged it with his free hand when it came close enough.

He didn’t know when they hit space, just the hard thump as the gunship landed on the _Resolute_ ’s deck.

 _“We made it,”_ said the pilot over the ship’s comm, speaking for the first time with a gasp of relief.

Rex looked around the dark belly of the gunship, dimly illuminated by the safety lights. Kix was crouched over General Kenobi, still unconscious and bleeding in Cody’s lap; Cody himself had lost his helmet at some point and there were proximity burns down one side of his head, burning off his hair, and staining his armor. Kix didn’t look any better, bleeding where shrapnel had pierced his armor. Rex himself was aware of what were probably broken ribs and maybe worse. None of the gunship’s snipers had survived. Two were still secured to the gunship by their safety harnesses, but they were slumped over dead. The third man’s body had been left behind.

Rex unwound his wrist from the safety strap, trying and failing to get to his feet before sitting back down with a bone-jarring thump.

The gunship’s doors slid open onto chaos: men screaming in agony, the distant sound of laserfire and blast impacts. The hangar doors were still open, gunships and tank-lifters – most empty – still trying to make it in through the magnetic shield that yawned above them. One of them exploded close enough that some of the debris was blown through the magnetic shield into the _Resolute_ ’s launch dock. Rex dragged himself up to his feet on the webbing attached to the wall of the gunship, trying to identify clones he knew. He could see 212th and 501st clones and equipment, what looked like too many of them in one space. Navy medics and landing crew ran back and forth, triaging the worst of the wounded and trying to get people and gear out of the launch dock.

_“All personnel, clear launch dock for incoming starfighters and prepare to jump to hyperspace.”_

“Medic!” Kix yelled over the sound of the all-ship comm. “I need a medic and a stretcher over here for General Kenobi!”

“I can walk,” Kenobi said, his voice breathy with pain. Rex looked over to see him conscious and trying to push himself up, but Cody caught him and held him place.

Starfighters slammed through the magnetic shield to skid along the floor of the central launch dock, some of them automatically trying to turn into the landing bays before realizing that they were all full of gunships, tank-lifters, and clones. The last one barely made it through before the bay doors began to close.

_“All personnel, brace for hyperspace jump in three – two –”_

“No!” General Kenobi protested. “We can’t –”

Rex felt his stomach drop as the ship left realspace. Then the sound of laserfire and blast impacts ceased, and the sound of men screaming and moaning in pain rose up.

_“Launch dock repressurizing.”_

“Medic!” Kix yelled again. “I need a medic and a stretcher for the general!”

“Let me _up_ , Cody,” Kenobi said through his teeth. “I can – I’m fine –”

“No, sir, you’re not,” Kix said firmly. “Your bones are supposed to be _inside_ you, or don’t they teach you that at the Jedi Temple, sir?”

Kenobi glanced at his left arm, grimaced, and shook his head before struggling to his feet. He almost fell over, but Kix lunged to catch him, nearly falling himself. “General, _hold still_.”

The general wrapped his good hand in the webbing on the gunship’s wall to hold himself upright. “Anakin,” he whispered, more to himself than for any of the clones.

Rex spotted familiar markings on one of the clones across their hangar bay and scrambled out of the gunship, almost tripping before catching himself on the ship’s side. “Fives!”

The other clone turned at the sound of his name, then pulled off his helmet and shoved his way through the crowd to Rex. “Captain –”

He looked past Rex into the gunship’s interior, where General Kenobi was still on his feet, but holding himself up solely by his grip on the webbing. “Where’s General Skywalker?”

Rex shook his head.

Fives swore, then leapt aside as a pair of navy medics ran up with a repuslorlift stretcher between them, followed by Admiral Yularen. “General Kenobi,” he began crisply, then stopped as he saw the general. He stared for a moment as Kenobi tried to wave off the medics and almost fell over instead.

“Commander, hold him still,” Kix said, his voice tight, and when the general started to protest, slapped a hypo against his exposed neck.

Kenobi’s eyes went huge and hurt, then he slumped over as the drug took effect, Cody and one of the other medics taking his weight. They transferred him to the repulsorlift; Cody added tiredly as Kix hesitated, “Kix, go with them, I don’t want him waking up alone and I need to –”

“Yes, sir,” Kix said, and followed the medics.

Admiral Yularen watched them go, then turned to face Rex, Cody, and Fives. “What happened down there? Where’s General Skywalker?”

“General Skywalker’s dead,” Rex said. “There was an explosion – we think he was there. There was –” He hesitated, not sure how to explain what he had seen down on the planet’s surface.

“It was a Sep trap,” Cody said.

“Well, that’s obvious.” The admiral glanced around at the chaotic scene in the hangar bays, then nodded to himself. “The other troops we picked up are on _Coruscant Sky_ and _Audacious_. We’ll have a better idea of how many made it offworld when we come out of hyperspace. Take care of your men, gentlemen. I’ll contact Coruscant.”

“Yes, sir.” The three clones saluted.

Admiral Yularen turned and walked away. Rex slumped back against the side of the gunship, staring at the mess of wounded and dying men and battered equipment. Cody reached over to grip his shoulder.

“You should see a medic too.”

“I’m fine.” Rex shifted, felt his battered ribs protest, and added, “Others need them more. I can wait.”

He needed to go and start getting a headcount of how many of his men had survived. He needed a lot of things. “What happened?” he said, more to himself than to Cody and Fives.

Fives just shook his head. Cody said, “I don’t know.”

 _My general’s dead_ , Rex thought, and felt grief rise up inside him, threatening to choke him. He clung to the side of the gunship for a moment, letting himself give in for the space of five heartbeats, no more, then pushed away. He had work to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, the infamous Battle of Odryn! Odryn, where Anakin disappears and Darth Vader appears, is first identified as the site of a major Republic defeat in [Wake 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2418374), where Obi-Wan describes it as the turning point in the war. In [Wake 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2452183), Obi-Wan gives Padme an account of the fighting; this is not entirely accurate to that rendition, but considering that it's later established that Obi-Wan doesn't actually remember large swathes of the battle I have taken liberties with that description. (In that scene, Obi-Wan takes responsibility for the decision to withdraw, but in [Sound the Bells](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2405450/chapters/5319737) he says that someone else made that call since he was otherwise occupied; my logic is that he took responsibility when making his formal report to the Council and the Supreme Chancellor.)
> 
> This story takes place concurrent with the beginning of [Wake the Storm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760?view_full_work=true).


	4. Anakin: Sound Out the Trumpet Noise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a missing scene from [Wake the Storm](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2172256), set between the Anakin and Obi-Wan conversation and the arrival on Coruscant in [Chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1080760/chapters/2474326).

Anakin woke to a murmur of familiar voices and Obi-Wan’s hand light in his hair. It took him a moment to orient himself, the Force curling warm and welcome around him. _Oh_ , he thought, a little groggy, _that’s what it is –_

It wasn’t that there had been anything _wrong_ about Obi-Wan – about the other Obi-Wan, the one from the future. Anakin had just assumed that the faint dissonance in the Force had come from the fact that he wasn’t, technically speaking, alive; Force ghosts were one of those things that came up from time to time in Jedi fairy tales, but which no one had seen in living memory. _Exceptionally powerful Force-users who died with unfinished business that kept them from becoming one with the Force_ was the theory Anakin vaguely remembered from a class Obi-Wan had forced him to take as a padawan. Jedi weren’t supposed to die with unfinished business, but – 

Well, Anakin understood why the other Obi-Wan might have stuck around now, and he really, really wished that he didn’t.

He was aware from the soft fabric beneath his cheek, and the hard muscle beneath that, that he must have fallen asleep with his head in Obi-Wan’s lap, which under other circumstances he probably would have been embarrassed by but which right now felt like the best idea he had had in months. Obi-Wan, who like other crèche-raised Jedi didn’t have a problem with that sort of thing, had one hand in Anakin’s hair, the other resting on his shoulder, as though he couldn’t bear to let go of him.

 _I love you_ , Anakin thought dreamily, content to just lie here, wrapped up in the Force and Obi-Wan’s affection – untinged by the grief and the guilt that he had mostly gotten used to over the past two months. There was something else, something new, but it was eclipsed by all the rest and Anakin forgot about it almost as soon as he had noticed it.

He blinked as the soft conversation going on over his head finally began to penetrate. “I’m awake,” he said, off Obi-Wan’s half-voiced protest. He sat up, rubbing a hand over his bleary eyes as Obi-Wan braced him with a hand on his shoulder – _stars, he doesn’t want to let go of you, does he?_ – and added, “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Obi-Wan said. “It’s just –”

Captain Rex was half-in and half-out of the room, his helmet tucked under his arm so that Anakin could see the reproving look he shot Obi-Wan. “General,” he said, directed at Anakin this time, “everyone’s already heard that you’re back, at least everyone left from the Five-Oh-First. But only Torrent Company saw you.”

It took Anakin a moment to realize what Rex meant. “They want to see me?” he asked, coughing on the second syllable as his abused throat reminded him that he really needed to stop talking.

“Yes, sir,” Rex said. “It’ll put a stop to some of the more, um, outrageous rumors I’ve heard.”

Anakin was pretty sure that he didn’t want to know what those were until he felt a little more ready to cope with them. Planting his face in Obi-Wan’s shoulder and going back to sleep was an enticing option, but after what had happened to his men on Odryn, he owed them an apology at the very least.

Obi-Wan apparently decided that trying to make Anakin go back to sleep was a lost cause and said, “Your men were very – it was difficult for all of us.”

Obi-Wan admitting that anything, up to and including his own capture and torture, had been something other than a walk in the park for him was news. Anakin squinted suspiciously at him, but Obi-Wan was opaque even in the Force.

Wincing at the way his aching body protested – he hadn’t been doing his usual workouts, let alone his usual fighting regimen, for the past two months – Anakin got to his feet. “Yeah,” he said. “I need to see them.”

Obi-Wan didn’t say anything, but he quirked his head at Rex, raising one eyebrow. Rex shook his head slightly in response, and Anakin blinked as Obi-Wan nodded. “Try not to exhaust him,” he said.

“I’m fine,” Anakin said automatically. He stretched, winced as his back popped, and leaned down to pull his boots on, since he’d taken them off before falling asleep. “How far out from Coruscant are we?”

“About ten hours, last I heard,” Rex said. He glanced back at Obi-Wan as he stepped aside so Anakin could precede him out into the corridor. “You should get some sleep too, General.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth quirked slightly, but all he said was, “I’ll try.”

The door slid shut behind them as Rex and Anakin went down the corridor, occasionally passing white-armored marines or clone sailors in naval uniform. Although only a few of them stopped to stare at him, almost all of them did double-takes when they saw him, and he squared his shoulders, self-conscious.

“Everyone thought you were dead, General,” Rex said, anticipating his unasked question. “You were on the missing list out of courtesy to the Supreme Chancellor and General Kenobi, but…everyone thought you were dead.”

“Obi-Wan didn’t.”

Rex’s steady stride slowed for a moment. When he didn’t respond immediately, Anakin said, a little hesitantly, “He didn’t – he didn’t, did he? Jesse said –”

“Jesse’s an optimist,” Rex muttered. “General, no one else survived that blast on Odryn. Everyone within half a klick of the dig site died instantly.”

Anakin stared at him. “What?”

“At least I hope it was instantly,” Rex added under his breath, and repeated, “Everyone in the village with you died, sir.”

“Who –” Anakin couldn’t remember who had been there. Torrent Company couldn’t have been, or he wouldn’t be talking to Rex right now, but he couldn’t remember who else – 

“Most of Shadow and Torrent companies survived,” Rex said, understanding him. “Neon, Diamond, and Dazzler both took heavy casualties; what was left of Neon and Diamond got folded into Dazzler. Rattler and Flash are gone.”

Anakin stared at him, too stunned to respond. _Sixty percent casualty rate_ had abruptly just translated itself to names and faces, men he had spoken to and laughed with and fought beside. “That was –” He caught his breath, feeling the ragged tear in his throat. “That was just on Odryn?”

“Rattler and Flash were in the village; no one survived. The other three…Diamond took the worst casualties there; we didn’t have enough men to keep the company name. They were in with Neon on Jebble and Darkknell, but Neon got it hard on Cato Neimodia. The survivors went to Dazzler – they’ve got a lieutenant from the Two-Twelfth now, and what used to be Midnight Company, from the Two-Twelfth.” He shrugged matter-of-factly. “General Kenobi let us keep the Five-Oh-First together as much as we could, but there wasn’t any point, really, especially after that mess on Taris.”

Anakin swallowed. “How many are left?” he made himself ask. He had had just shy of six hundred men under his command when they had made planetfall on Odryn; the 501st hadn’t been at full strength for months. No battalion had.

Rex grimaced. “Counting the casualties we took today…one hundred and ninety-seven.”

It was as if all the breath had been knocked out of Anakin’s lungs. He took a step backwards, managing to brace himself on the corridor wall before he fell over. “That’s –”

It was a lot more than the sixty percent casualty rate he had been told, but Rex had said that there had been other deployments besides Odryn – of course there would have been. Both the 212th and 501st were first-line combat battalions; they always had been. Obi-Wan and Anakin were too good to put them anywhere but right on the front. _Except I was gone, and Obi-Wan was –_

Rex had just reeled off four systems, which was a lot of deployments in a very short period of time, if it had been two months here as well as in the other timeline. And that was assuming he had named them all.

“It isn’t the highest casualty rate in the GAR,” Rex said, misinterpreting his silence. “General Kenobi’s too good for that, even with – well. Even with everything. Odryn skewed the numbers.”

Anakin shut his eyes hard enough that it hurt. “What do you mean, ‘even with everything’?”

Rex hesitated for the first time, then said, “I’d rather not say, sir.”

“Because –”

“Because he’s my general, sir, and those are my secrets to keep.”

Anakin winced. He didn’t mean to, but it _hurt_ to hear that, because Rex had always been his clone commander; it was a shock to realize that he wasn’t anymore.

Rex started to say something in response to his reaction, then bit his lip and shook his head. “The boys will be happy to see you, General,” he said eventually.

They started down the corridor again. Just outside the hatch that led to the troop quarters, Rex paused with his hand out over the control panel and said, “You weren’t with the Seppies, were you, General?”

Anakin hesitated, but if anyone other than Obi-Wan and Padmé deserved complete honesty from him, it was Rex. “No,” he said. “It’s complicated, but – no, I wasn’t.”

“Where you were –” Rex fumbled for the words. “If he had gone looking for you, if he’d gone by himself or if he’d taken us, could General Kenobi have found you?”

Anakin blinked. “No,” he said again. “No one could have found me, where I was. Not even Obi-Wan.”

Rex nodded to himself, then hit the control to open the hatch. The corridor on the other side didn’t look particularly different from the one they had just left, but the atmosphere was a little more relaxed, the Force a touch less wary. The clones on the navy side of the _Resolute_ were still on duty; these ones weren’t. Not yet, anyway. Anakin had never spent a lot of time in the troop quarters in the past, mostly because he had the vague idea that the clones probably didn’t want to be under the eyes of their commanding officer any more often than they had to, so it had been a while since the last time he had ventured into this section of the _Resolute_.

Rex led him unerringly through the narrow corridors. There were a few clones up and about, but most were in their racks, sleeping off the adrenaline of the battle, or had already moved to one of the rec rooms to play dejarik or listen to the HoloNet. They drew aside for Anakin and Rex to pass, staring at Anakin with uncomfortable attention.

“You didn’t change your colors,” he said to Rex, remembering the troops that he had seen on Mustafar. There had been a few yellow-marked clones among them, but the majority – at least until they had met up with Cody’s forces in the manufacturing facility – had kept the same blue markings they had had in the 501st.

“No real reason, sir,” Rex said. “General Kenobi didn’t care – I think he would have minded more if we had, to be honest.” He shrugged a little, self-conscious, and added, “Plenty of battalions with mixed colors these days. The Five-Oh-First isn’t the only battalion that’s been disbanded over the past year.”

“I know,” Anakin said glumly. The casualty rate had been rising steadily ever since the war had begun, but it had gotten worse as Kamino’s facilities were pushed nearly to breaking point and they were forced to push more and more clones into the field before they had properly completed their training. Sometimes it worked out, like it had with Fives and Echo. Usually it didn’t.

He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck as Rex stopped in front of another hatch, tapping the control to open it.

Nobody inside noticed their arrival at first. It was one of the larger rec rooms, and clones were sprawled everywhere, some still in armor, some out of it. The most recent smashball game, which was apparently the Coruscant Buccaneers at the Chandrila Hornbirds, was playing at high volume in a corner, a group of clones gathered around it cheering loudly at each goal. Others were listening with avid interest to one of the GSO entertainment HoloNet channels. Anakin spotted Fives with Kix, Jesse, and Tup at a table in the corner, sharing a pitcher of something foamy and green.

Silence began to spread through the room as the clones nearest the door noticed their arrival. Anakin shifted back on one foot, self-conscious and a little nervous for no good reason; these were his men, after all. Or they had been. They were Obi-Wan’s men now.

“General?” someone said; Anakin couldn’t tell who.

“Yeah.” He made himself smile. “It’s me.”

The holoprojector showing the smashball game abruptly went dark as someone shut it off, the other holoprojector following a moment later. Everyone was staring at Anakin now.

 _One hundred and ninety-seven_ , Rex had said. There were fewer than that in here, but some had to be in the medbay or sleeping.

“We left you behind?” Carver, from Neon Company – what had been Neon Company – blurted out, sounding horrified. “Sir –”

“No!” Anakin said quickly. “It’s – it’s complicated, but no.” He took a deep breath and said, pitching his voice to carry, “Where I was no one could have found me. Not even Obi-Wan.”

“Not that the Council or the Chancellor would let him look,” someone muttered; Anakin couldn’t tell who it was.

He didn’t look in the direction of the speaker. “I hope you boys didn’t give him too much trouble,” he said, quirking the corner of his mouth up and trying to force a light tone he didn’t feel. “Or Commander Cody, either.”

Cody himself, seated in a corner of the room with several of the battalion’s officers and watching quietly, rolled his eyes.

“Aww, General Kenobi can take it,” Fives said. He stood up and came over to Anakin, his grin spreading across his face.

“We’ve just about gotten him broken in!” someone shouted.

“Well, that’s more than I ever managed to do in ten years,” Anakin called back, spreading his hands, and there was a burst of laughter. He felt Rex relax slightly beside him, though he could still sense an edge of tension in him.

“We’re just glad to have you back, sir,” Fives said, then brought his right hand up and saluted. Chairs shifted back and armor clattered as every clone trooper in the room – even Cody and the handful of other 212th troopers – got to their feet and did the same.

Anakin caught his breath, suddenly overwhelmed. He glanced at Rex, only to see that he was saluting as well. For once he couldn’t think of anything to say, so all he did was return the salute.

“Thank you,” he managed to say finally. “Thank you. And – I’m sorry I wasn’t here.”

“Not your fault, sir,” Fives said. “We’ll make the Seppies pay for what they did to you.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the room. Anakin let his breath out, his hands falling back to his sides, and said, “Well, someone’s going to pay. But I’m glad I’ve got you with me. All of you.”

He took the shot glass Jesse hurried up to hand him and raised it, clones scrambling for their own glasses to do the same. “To the Five Hundred and First!”

“The Five Hundred and First!”

Anakin downed the shot, then took the next glass shoved at him and held that up too. 

"To the Two Hundred and Twelfth!"

"The Two Hundred and Twelfth!"

He took a third glass, already a little woozy from the alcohol, and held it up, waiting for the room to quiet before he spoke again. “And to the Republic,” Anakin said, more quietly. “May it stand for another thousand years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally started writing this back in December 2014, or at least that's the date on the Word doc; a year and a half is sadly not the longest I've gone between starting a story and finishing one. Note that this is a missing scene and not a cut scene, since it wasn't originally written while Wake was in progress.
> 
> This is the first Tales story set during Wake, rather than during the missing months.


End file.
